


i'll just keep drawing horses

by greatkateweathermachine



Category: Bill & Ted (Movies)
Genre: Character Study, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, because i saw it on tumblr and immediately thought of bill, this is inspired by that how to draw horses comic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:46:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27346051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greatkateweathermachine/pseuds/greatkateweathermachine
Summary: “Hey Bill,” Ted says, “do you know how to draw a horse?”“No dude, why would I need to know how to draw a horse?”“For the logo, dude! Now that we have a triumphant band name, we need a triumphant logo.”“I guess we haven’t done the horse unit in art class yet.” Bill says, “But I can totally learn how to draw a horse.”
Relationships: Ted "Theodore" Logan & Bill S. Preston Esq., Ted "Theodore" Logan/Bill S. Preston Esq.
Comments: 11
Kudos: 94





	i'll just keep drawing horses

They come up with the name “Wyld Stallyns” on a Sunday afternoon. Lounging around Bill’s bedroom all weekend was pretty standard, but this particular weekend they had entered with a task in mind. Finding a truly spectacular name for their band.

Now, on Sunday, with only a few hours until Ted had to go home, they were still trying to find the perfect name. 

“We’ve tried everything, dude. Maybe we should just try again next weekend?” Bill says from his spot on his bed.

“No!” Ted cries as he jumped up from where he was laying at the foot of the bed, “If we give up now we’ll never find an outstanding name for our band!”

“I don’t know, Ted. We’ve been trying to find a name all weekend. My head hurts from thinking about it for so long.”

“That’s it, Bill!” Ted says, bouncing up and down on the bed, “We don’t think about it. We’ve been thinking about it all weekend, and that didn’t work, so let’s not think about it.”

“Ted,” Bill says as he pulls himself into a sitting position, “how are we supposed to think of a band name if we don’t think about it?”

“Just say the first thing that comes to your mind, dude!”

Bill’s skeptical about this idea to come up with a name, but nothing else had worked. And Ted’s excited, and he couldn’t say no to Ted, so he closes his eyes and tries not to think. His mind wandered to history class on Friday. He couldn’t pay attention to what was happening in class, he never can, especially with Ted sitting right behind him. He thinks it was about the Revolutionary War. The only thing he  _ can  _ remember is the picture in his history textbook. A wild horse, running across the plains.

“A horse. A wild horse.”

When Bill opens his eyes, Ted is staring at him with a huge grin.

“What is it, dude?” He says, squirming under Ted’s gaze.

“Bill,” Ted says with utmost seriousness, “I know our band’s name. Wild Stallions.”

Ted grabs one of Bill’s notebooks off the floor, and writes the name down on the cardboard back.

“That is a most bodacious band name.” Bill agrees, “But it would be even better if we did it like this.”

He takes the pen from Ted’s hand, and carefully draws “y”s over the “i” in wild and the “io” in stallions. He sits back to admire his work.

“Dude.” Ted says, “That’s it. That’s the name.”

They grin at each other before breaking out into two excellent air guitar solos.

“Hey Bill,” Ted says after they’ve finished air guitaring, “do you know how to draw a horse?”

“No dude, why would I need to know how to draw a horse?”

“For the logo, dude! Now that we have a triumphant band name, we need a triumphant logo.”

“I guess we haven’t done the horse unit in art class yet.” Bill says, “But I can totally learn how to draw a horse.”

That night, after Ted’s gone home, Bill finds the picture in his history textbook and tries to recreate it in the sketchbook he has for art class. It ends up looking more like a dog than a horse.

“Hey Missy,” Bill says during dinner. His dad had gotten caught up at work, so it was just him and Missy tonight. “do you know how to draw a horse?”

“No, I guess I don’t. Is this for your art class?” Missy says as she ate a forkful of mac and cheese. Bill had been picking at all night, facing the challenge of trying to find the parts that aren’t burnt.

“No, Ted and I finally came up with a name for our band. Wyld Stallyns!” He announces, spreading his arms wide and waiting for Missy to congratulate him on this momentous occasion. Missy gives him a polite smile, and nods her head for him to keep talking. 

“We’d been trying to think of a name all weekend, and then Ted was like ‘what if we don’t think,’ and i wasn’t sure about it, but it worked! And now I need to learn how to draw a horse, because Ted wants one to be in the logo.”

Missy chews her food thoughtfully, thinking about how to respond.

“Maybe you can ask your art teacher for help? She probably knows how to draw a horse. Or she might have a book on how to draw them.” she says after a few moments.

Bill turns the idea over in his head. He’s not the type to ask a teacher for help, especially on something that isn’t even schoolwork. But then he thinks about the horses he keeps drawing, the ones that look like dogs or goats or cows. He might need help on this, and his teacher’s a professional. Surely she’ll help a young budding artist like himself.

Apparently horses are hard to draw, even for experienced artists. When he asks Ms. Robinson if she knows how to draw a horse, she tells Bill that she can't spend class time teaching him how to draw one, and if he wants to learn how, he can go to the library and find a book about it. 

When class is over, Bill goes to the library and checks out three books that promise to teach him how to draw a horse.

After a lot of practice, and about half of his sketchbook, Bill is confident enough in his abilities to draw a horse head on the back of one of his shirts. It doesn’t look great, he thinks, it’s nowhere near the realistic artwork in his books, and it’s only a head. Still, he wears it later that day when he goes to hang out with Ted, and thinks that Ted will probably be thrilled with the progress he’s made over the last week or two.

Ted  _ is _ thrilled, and notices the drawing as soon as he sees Bill’s back.

“Dude!” Ted cries, joy evident in his words, “It’s a horse! I thought you couldn’t draw one?”

Bill whips around to look at his friend.

“I’ve been practicing! It’s not a full horse, just a head, but it’s way better then when I first started. All those horses looked like cows and stuff.”

“Bill, my friend.” Ted says as he puts his hand on Bill’s shoulder, fingers brushing the sharpie lines of the horse’s mane, “I am most fortunate to have a buddy who dedicates himself to such an admirable task as designing a logo for our band.”

Ted removes his hand, and starts bounding down the hallway towards his room. Bill reaches back and presses his hand against the horse, where Ted’s hand was just moments ago.

Once he’s back home, Bill digs his sketchbook out of his backpack and draws five horses, trying not to think about Ted’s hand on his shoulder, or the way Ted’s hair bounced as he walked down the hallway.

For the next month, every time Bill thinks about Ted and the way that he always smiles when he sees Bill, or Ted’s shoulder pressed up against his in the backseat of Missy’s car, he draws a horse. It’s two birds with one stone, Bill reasons, he gets to practice drawing horses, and he gets to ward away the more-than-friendly thoughts he’s been having for his best friend.

Once, and only once, he draws Ted in his sketchbook. He stares at the drawing for what feels like hours before ripping it out and drawing enough horses that his hand feels numb.

“But Bill,” Ted says, “those are historical babes.”

The horse on the back of Bill’s shirt feels like it’s searing through his skin, and he’d give anything to have a pencil and paper.

The night after the history report, after their excellent adventure through time, Bill can’t fall asleep. He lays in bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking about Ted.

The problem is he  _ can’t stop  _ thinking about Ted. About Ted’s smile, and the way his bangs fall in his eyes, and the way that he can always make Bill laugh, no matter how shitty he’s feeling. About holding what he thought was Ted’s body, in medieval England, and wanting something he doesn’t let himself think about. About seeing Ted, alive, and hugging him if only for a few seconds. His fingers itch for a pencil.

His bedspread feels stifling all of the sudden, like the room just got ten degrees hotter. Bill kicks the covers off and goes to his desk, finds the biggest piece of paper he can find. It’s a poster board that he bought for an art project, but right now that doesn’t matter, the only thing that matters is he  _ needs  _ to draw. If he doesn’t draw, he’ll keep thinking about Ted, and if he keeps thinking about Ted, he doesn’t want to know what will happen next.

Bill puts the poster board on the floor, clearing some dirty clothes out of the way so it can sit flat on the carpet. The motions of drawing a horse are familiar, it’s something he’s done a thousand times, though never this big.

He doesn’t think about Ted. He draws a horse.

The next morning when Missy comes into his room to put away laundry, the first thing she notices is the big horse on the poster board, still on the floor in the center of Bill’s room. Bill watches as her eyes glance down at the drawing and then back up at him.

“Isn’t that the poster board we bought for your art project?” she says, “You weren’t supposed to use that to practice your band’s logo.”

Missy slips into what Bill thinks of as her “mom voice”, which reminds him of moms in old TV shows scolding their kids for taking a pie off of a windowsill or something. 

He and Missy stare at each other for a few seconds. His stomach is tied in knots over what she might think if she finds out the reason he drew that horse.

“Sorry Missy,” Bill says, his voice coming out choked up despite his best attempts to sound normal, “I’ll go out and buy another one tomorrow.”

Missy narrows her eyes and sets down her laundry basket so she can move to sit next to Bill on his bed.

_ Busted _ , he thinks.

“Bill,” she starts, sounding concerned, “Is there another reason that you drew a horse on the poster board?”

Bill’s mind races to find a convenient lie, but he feels like he’s about to cry, and all the secrets he’s been keeping feel like they’re going to burst out of his chest.

“I can’t stop thinking about him. About Ted.” he pulls his legs up to his chest and wraps his arms around them, “I know it’s wrong, but it won’t stop, and everytime it happens I draw a horse.”

That’s where he wants to stop, but now the dam is open and all the things he’s been feeling for the past month, for the past three years come spilling out.

“I’m sorry, I try to make it stop but I  _ can’t _ and-” he’s cut off by Missy putting her hand on his knee.

“Bill, it’s not wrong,” she says, forehead wrinkled with concern and sadness, “Whatever you’re feeling, it’s not wrong.  _ You’re  _ not wrong.”

Bill looks at her with wide eyes before pitching forward into her arms as he starts to sob.

He skips school for the next few days. Missy calls to tell them he’s sick. He spends those days in bed, wrapped up in a blanket, trying not to give into the urge to fill up another page of his sketchbook.

On Friday, after school’s over, Ted comes over. Bill can hear Missy answer the door and let him in.

“Hey.” Ted says as he opens the door to Bill’s room, “Missy said you had the flu, but you’re starting to feel better.”

Bill hopes he doesn’t see the poster board. Ted’s not the best at being aware of his surroundings, usually leading to Bill grabbing him by the wrist to keep him from running into a tree or a trash can. Luck seems to be on Bill’s side, Ted bypasses the board without a glance, and sits down on Bill’s bed.

Bill brings himself to sit up and look Ted in the face. He looks a little worried, but happy. Ted is almost always happy, especially when he’s around Bill.

“Did you go to see the princesses? Didn’t Rufus mention getting them an apartment?” he says as he de-tangles himself from his blanket. It’s a little weird to think about having other friends besides Ted, especially ones that are 15th century princesses.

“Yeah, they have an apartment. But I didn’t go to see them, dude. I came to hang with you as soon as school ended.”

“Oh.” Bill feels a pit in his stomach, telling him not to get too hopeful. His eyes flick over to the poster board.

Unfortunately, Ted tracks the movement, and looks over at the floor.

“Woah! That’s a big horse!”

Bill squeezes his eyes shut and tries to stop the thoughts running through his head.

_ He knows, he knows, he knows. _

“When did you get so good at drawing horses? Like a month ago you told me you could only draw the head.”

Bill rubs his nose, refusing to look Ted in the eye. “I guess I just practiced a lot.”

“Well now we can definitely make an excellent logo for Wyld Stallyns.” 

Bill gives a grunt of acknowledgement, and sees Ted deflate a little out of the corner of his eye.

“Listen, Bill.” Ted says, voice now serious. Bill’s heart jumps.

_ He knows, he knows, he knows. _

“Do you remember yesterday, when we were in medieval England, and you thought that medieval dude stabbed me?”

Of course he remembers. Bill thinks that minute where he thought Ted was dead, that he’d never see him again, might be the worst minute of his entire life.

“But he didn’t really stab me, cause I fell out of the armor?”

“Yeah Ted, I remember.” his voice comes out tense, and he tries to think about all the horse facts he learned, instead of reliving yesterday’s events.

“Well I was thinking today, while I was at school, that if I were you, and you were me, and I thought I saw you get stabbed, it would be most non-triumphant.”

_ Horses are perfectly designed to carry their own weight. A horse can stand without using any muscles at all. _

“And that if I thought you were dead, I’d be pretty sad, because I’d never get to see you again.”

_ A horse's legs are more similar in structure to a human finger than a human leg. _

“And that there’s something I want to tell you.”

_ Horses won’t step in puddles. They can’t tell how deep they are, and fear that they’ll break their legs. _

“Bill.” Ted says, and Bill looks up at him. Ted's eyes are all wet, and he has a vulnerable expression that Bill knows is mirrored on his own face.

“I’m going to say something that might be stupid, and if it is stupid, you tell me, and we can forget I ever said it.” 

Bill nods, waiting for Ted to say whatever he has to say.

Ted takes a deep breath and blows it out, before making direct eye contact with Bill.

“Can I kiss you?”

“Yes,” Bill says, before he even has time to think. Ted looks startled at how fast he responded, so he repeats it. “Yes, you can kiss me. I’d like that.”

Ted seems apprehensive, but leans in anyway, ever so slowly. Bill leans forward towards Ted, until their noses are almost touching. Ted closes the distance between them. 

Ted’s lips are warm, and he brings his hand up to cup Bill’s jaw, while Bill threads his arms around Ted’s waist. They stay like that until Bill has to pull away to breath, and he looks at Ted, who is looking at  _ him  _ like he isn’t even real. Bill reached forward and grabbed Ted’s hand.

“Ted, my friend, I think that I love you. I think I have for a while.”

Ted grins.

“Bill, my friend, that is great news. Because I love you too.”

“Really?”

“Yeah dude!” Ted laughs, “I didn’t just kiss you for no reason.”

“It’s just,” Bill starts, not sure how to find the right words, “I thought that if you found out about me, about how I felt, you’d think it was weird. You wouldn’t want to be friends anymore.”

Ted sits up, and puts his hand on Bill’s shoulder.

“Bill, even if I wasn’t totally in love with you, I would never not want to be your friend.”

Bill feels his face flush. Ted’s hand is heavy on his shoulder.

“Ted, can you do me a favor?” he says, trying to direct the conversation towards something that won’t make his heart race.

“Anything, dude.”

“Can you go to the store with me? I need to buy another poster board.”

**Author's Note:**

> this was inspired by this comic: https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/how-to-draw-a-horse
> 
> here's a playlist i made for this fic: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0Z7EoHN2JiYDEuEJwaq1zW
> 
> i'm greatkateweathermachine on tumblr, and wearewyldstallyns is my bnt sideblog.
> 
> leave me a comment to tell me what you think! i would love some feedback!


End file.
